The 2023 Shanghai International Auto Show can be described as one of the most lively events in China in recent years, and it is also the most convincing to make people feel that "the previous grand scenery is back!" An international exhibition.
In addition to domestic independent brands continuing to fully interpret the "inner roll" of China's automobile market and showing the strength of China's automobile industry to lead the world trend in the new energy era, this year's Shanghai Auto Show also surprisingly added some special exhibits, that is, "classic cars".
Jaguar XK120
Jaguar showcased one of their most iconic roadsters: the XK120 at the Shanghai Motor Show.
Born in 1948 as the founding of the Jaguar XK series of sports cars, this slender and elegant front-engined two-seater roadster was powered by a 3.4-liter inline 6-cylinder engine with a maximum horsepower of between 162 and 223 hp, and was born at an average speed of 132.6 mph (212.16 km/h) on a Belgian motorway, becoming the fastest production car in the world that year.
In addition, its slender nose and short tail, and the proportions of the cockpit rear arrangement have also become the standard design style of Jaguar's sports cars since then.
This time, Jaguar brought the XK120 to the Shanghai Motor Show, mainly to show the new F-Type Collector's Edition sports platform, showing Jaguar's deep history in building sports cars.
However, Jaguar F-Type, as a sports car first launched in 2013, has a history of 10 years, and it can already be regarded as a "classic" in itself. From the perspective of styling design, the slender nose, down-slip tail, and elegant body curve that are consistent with the XK120 style are still very beautiful and attractive.
However, compared with the XK120 to show the long sports car history and elegant styling design behind the F-Type, F-Type as a product itself has produced a certain generation difference, no matter how beautiful the XK120 is, F-Type is always an old model that is already at the end of the life of the product, and the freshness has been greatly reduced.
Therefore, the XK120 exhibition can bring more curious eyes, and from the product itself, Jaguar needs a new car that is equally beautiful and can keep up with the pace of the times to recapture the attention of consumers.
Citroen 2CV
French brand Citroen brought one of the most important products they launched after World War II - 2CV.
This very simple structure of the car was born in 1948, only equipped with a twin-cylinder engine, the whole vehicle weighs only 600kg, in order to quickly popularize the car, so that the French who still commonly used horse-drawn carts or trolleys can drive modern cars.
Therefore, the price of 2CV in that year was quite affordable, and in order to achieve this super affordable low price, and in order to improve reliability and economy, the 2CV configuration was quite rudimentary; But even so, the 2CV, one of the cheapest cars of its time, quickly attracted the attention of a large number of consumers, producing a total of more than 3.8 million units over its 42-year production process.
Compared to the 2CV on the stand, today's Citroen models are not as rudimentary as the 2CV of the past, but the comfortable long-travel suspension can still be seen on new bodies such as the Versailles C5X. Unfortunately, compared to the sales of millions of 2CV vehicles, Citroen's performance in the market today is indeed flat.
In the professor's view, the fact that Citroen C6 has attracted a large number of consumer attention with huge discounts shows that Citroen needs to inherit one of the most important characteristics of 2CV - affordable price in order to succeed in the Chinese market.
Earlier, the "120,000 C6" caused a heated discussion on the Internet, and netizens said that "the 120,000 C6 is the best car". It can be seen that as long as the price is strong enough to allure, Citroen as a French brand can still attract a lot of consumer attention.
If the current Citroen's main sales model, the Versailles C5X, can also give such a low price close to the people, and be as grounded as 2CV, I believe its sales performance will be greatly improved.
Lotus' Classic Car Squad
When it comes to classic cars, Lotus has the most classic car exhibits at this Shanghai Auto Show and all of them are very valuable, because at Lotus' booth, you can see as many as 3 classic cars on display, and each of them is a blockbuster work.
For example, Lotus founder Colin Chapman built the first race car, the Mk 1, and it was this simple tin sports car that looked like a children's toy that began Lotus' 75-year sports car history.
Next to the Mk 1 is the Lotus Eleven, a 1956 race car powered by a 1.1-liter inline four-cylinder engine weighing only 412kg and having won several class titles at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Eleven was also the first Lotus model to be named after a word beginning with the letter "E".
In addition, Lotus brought a legendary model from their F1 race, the 99T. Launched in 1987, this F1 car was the successor to the famous ground effect racing 98T, and the last car driven by the famous "car god" Elton Senna at the Lotus F1 Team.
The same appearance of the above three classic models was first to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Lotus brand; Secondly, in order to show consumers in a concrete way, this is not a "new force brand", but a classic sports brand with a long history.
However, although Lotus' first all-electric model, the ELETRE, achieved quite good results in the market, it lacked the common characteristics of these classic cars on the booth, and it was also an important competitive advantage of Lotus' past fuel models, that is, lightweight.
For pure electric vehicles, the weight of more than 2 tons is indeed the current "inescapable" shortcoming, if Lotus can solve this big problem, I believe it will be able to attract the attention of a large number of consumers.
Smart Roadster
Even the young brand smart, which is only 25 years old, also exhibited this rare classic car in China: the Roadster.
This is the only coupe sports car ever launched by the smart brand, and in the exterior styling section, it has impressed many fans with its low flat body and muscular wide-body shape, as well as a convertible structure similar to the Porsche 911 Targa.
Although the power performance of the turbocharged three-cylinder engine with a displacement of 0.7L is not outstanding, and the smoothness of the 6-speed AMT transmission has been criticized, its performance in terms of driving pleasure has received a lot of praise.
Although the Roadster is still "car-free", and the latest smart genie series is far from the direction of "small sports cars" in terms of size and positioning.
However, this classic car full of toy attributes reminds everyone that smart has always been a brand that pursues individuality and fun, and even if smart has become larger in the era of electrification, its sense of personality and fun in styling design and use experience has never diminished.
BMW M1 Procar art car
Finally, the professor believes that the most noteworthy classic car at the auto show is BMW's M1 Procar, because this is not only an iconic mid-engine supercar created by BMW and Lamborghini, it also has a strong artistic atmosphere.
Because the M1 Procar on the stand is painted in oil paint painted by Andy Warhol, a leader in pop art and one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Even though this classic art racing car was "attacked" by environmental groups during its previous public display and was splashed with flour, BMW cleaned it up and brought it to the Shanghai Auto Show site as a Dee concept platform.
Because artistic elements have always existed in many BMW models, the new Dee concept also shows the artistic effect of colorful body through BMW's latest color-changing paint technology.
However, with the further fermentation of the ice cream incident, perhaps BMW's most important problem now is not how to show its artistic status, but to focus on how to save the hearts of Chinese consumers.
Professor concludes
Whether it is a civilian car like the Citroen 2CV, a luxury sports car like the Jaguar XK120, or a top-of-the-line race car like the Lotus 99T, the purpose of overseas car brands to put out these classic models at the auto show is actually quite clear, that is, to show their heritage as an established manufacturer in front of young new brands.
There is no doubt that these classic cars of overseas brands are extremely attractive to car fans, because most of these classic cars are rare in China, and at the same time, they are also expensive rarities in the international market. However, for many ordinary consumers, everyone is looking at these classic models with a lively mentality.
Putting aside the foundation of automobile culture, although the historical heritage can not only bring certain brand characteristics in terms of car building concept and design beauty, but also bring a lot of talking points to car owners; However, in the new energy era, not only the driving mode of cars has been completely changed, but domestic consumers who have never experienced those glorious years will not have emotional resonance with these historical famous cars, and the brand history itself is naturally difficult to touch consumers and capture the hearts of consumers.
On the contrary, independent manufacturers who are very familiar with Chinese consumers, through the advantages of configuration, intelligence and other advantages to improve the configuration experience, have successfully gained the support of a large number of consumers. The brand heritage and car manufacturing experience accumulated by traditional brands over the past decades have been challenged like never before.
Therefore, in the Chinese market in the new energy era, it is difficult for historical heritage itself to bring more competitive advantages to overseas car companies.
In the professor's view, in the face of China's increasingly powerful new energy vehicles, if overseas car companies still want to get a relatively large piece of the cake in the huge Chinese market, they still need to study thoroughly how to create a new energy product that can adapt to the current market demand, and then study how to build their brand historical heritage into an additional advantage in the image of new energy products on this basis.